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The Wobbly Fox
It was the beginning of winter and Jay the Fox was walking back to his apartment, a well hidden cave inside the woods that he bought because of its centric location, very near the lake but not too far from the fields where he grew up. Jay couldn’t quite bring himself to leave his hometown, just too many memories to leave behind. So instead of following his dream of becoming a member of the Olympic running team, he settled for a low paying job in the woods cutting down trees. Given his small size he was terrible at his job and his colleagues didn’t take long to notice, soon they started calling him “Wobbly Fox” as he would crumble under the weight of the tree trunks, but he didn’t care as long as he knew he was doing his best.
On the way to his cave he stumbled upon a place that at some point in his life he came to know as his second home, the Olympic race track. Now covered in a thick layer of snow, he stopped for a minute and just looked at it, the graveyard of his broken dreams. As he stared into the white emptiness of the track he kept repeating to himself “What if?” he wondered how his life would be different had he followed his dreams all those years ago. As he dwelled in sorrow a familiar voice hollered from the other side of the street “Keep on walking wobbly fox, that place is only for the greats”. He snapped back to reality, kept his head low and resumed walking.
“It’s too late now” he said to himself. “Rob is right, I’m not one of the greats”.
As Jay arrived to his cave under the cover of darkness he caught a small beam of light that reflected on the frozen lake nearby. Jay took another look as a second beam of light began to fall from the sky. Jay followed it, but it landed behind Mount Hood a few miles ahead. Jay is terrified of loud noises and as the ball of light landed with a bang behind Mount Hood he ran as fast as he could into his cave. Jay thought it might’ve been fireworks which he hated ever since he was a baby fox.
Jay covered his ears and went to bed as another day had passed in the pale blue dot all living things called home. Jay had difficulty sleeping as the ground kept shaking all night “stupid fireworks” he thought. Jay was angry, mostly at himself for the way his life had turned out, but during that endless night he decided he was done feeling sorry for himself, he was going to make a change. As the sun came up so did Jay, determined to start a new life. He walked out of his cave into a devastated world, the once frozen lake was dried up and the surrounding trees were on fire. He ran to the highest vantage point he could find only to confirm what he already knew, everything was gone. He stood there for a while staring into the vast wasteland thinking to himself “What if?”.
